1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates in general to devices for conveying articles and has been developed with particular attention paid to its possible use in the framework of automatic-packaging plants.
More specifically, the invention has been developed with a view to its possible use together with storage devices comprising a plurality of mobile shelves, with an output area where a plurality of such shelves are substantially set on top of one another and are able to move vertically.
2. Description of the Related Art
Stores of this type are widely known in the prior art, as is documented, for example, by EP-A-0 565 098, FR-A-2 176 324, FR-A-2 521 110, FR-A-2 424 705, GB-A-2 217 170, GB-A-2 336 824, as well as EP-A-0 534 902, to which there corresponds U.S. Pat. No. 5,339,942.
The above documents approach the problem of loading articles arriving from an input conveyor into a store. In different situations of use, the articles to be stored consist of ranks of products aligned at least approximately in a direction transverse to the direction of advance of the products themselves. Each rank is hence to be loaded on a respective shelf of the store.
In these situations of use, it is necessary to meet certain essential requirements, such as, for example, the need to ensure that, at the moment in which each rank of products is transferred from the feed conveyor to the store, a free shelf is present and available in the store to receive the rank of articles that is loaded. This must be done, ensuring that transfer of the ranks of products is as regular as possible.
In some stores the shelves are arranged in groups, each group being comprised in a so-called “gondola” suspended, with a general hunting capability, to a motor-driven chain conveying structure. In this case, it is important to ensure that no undesired phenomena of oscillation of the gondolas are set up in the store that might cause the products in the store to fall.
In the context considered above, it has already been proposed to use mechanisms for following the shelves of the store by means of an oscillating structure of the type described in the document IT-B-1 195 128, in the name of the present applicant.
Albeit proving altogether effective from the operating standpoint, when applied to the context considered herein, the solution described in the above prior document is affected by an intrinsic structural complexity linked to the need to provide the structure that is able to carry out the movement of following the shelves of the store.